Aashayein is the story of Rahul (John Abraham), a gambler. He collapses down just after his long-time girlfriend Nafisa(Sonal Sehgal) accepts his marriage proposal. Later, on medical check-up, it is revealed that Rahul has got Lung Cancer, presumably by his smoking habits, and that he has got only 3 more months to live.

Havaldar Balkar Singh, Captain Dhananjay Shergill and Lieutenant Sahil Naqvi are amongst numerous fatalities on India's side in the 1999 Kargil war against Pakistan. All 3 men had written their last letters to Kuljeet Kaur, Squadron Leader Vikram Singh, and Dr. Naqvi respectively. These letters were located 3 years later by IBN Reporter, Avinash Sarin, who entrusts them to two Indore-based slackers, Ali Shah and Sameer Suri, and asks them to deliver them to Chandigarh, Manali, and Leh respectively. Ali and Sameer set out to film this journey in order to get a graduation degree so that they can re-locate to America as well as televise it widely in order to convince the youth not to join any of India's armed forces.

Aranya lives a middle-classed lifestyle in Ganga, Nilgiris, along with her widowed father, Ashok Mahadeo, who is a devotee of Bollywood artiste Kishore Kumar. She repairs wristwatches and clocks and also waits at a restaurant run by her friend, Gayatri Garg. One day she gets a male customer who wants his wristwatch repaired, and she does so. He shows up again the next day with the same task, and keeps on coming daily. She finds out that his name is Andrew Raymond and he was a fellow student during her school-days. He admits that he had a crush on her and had even agreed to wait 10 years to see her. She takes a liking to him and both hang-out together while she attempts to deal with her creditor, Gangaram, and increasing pressure from R.K. Constructions who want to build a resort. Then her world will shatter around her when she finds out that Andrew had been killed several years ago, and the male claiming to be him is actually an unknown and unstable inmate from the local mental ...